KYIV(National Times)- Russia pummelled Kyiv with drones and missiles on Tuesday, resuming its air attacks on the Ukrainian capital after a brief halt for the visit of US peace negotiators, and killing five people, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The overnight attack caused fires in several districts across the Ukrainian capital, damaging at least 14 high-rise buildings, a dorm, a school, a clinic, warehouses and other sites, officials said.
“Kyiv was exploding and burning,” Katarina Mathernova, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, said in a social media post. Explosions reverberated across the city as Russia kept menacing it with jet-powered drones into Tuesday afternoon.
Two people were killed in a strike on a warehouse, bringing the total death toll in the city to five, Klitschko said. Close to 30 people have been injured, authorities said.
Hungary expels 10 Russian mission staff for ‘unacceptable activities’
In a separate strike, a Russian drone partially destroyed a Ukrainian TV channel building in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff left Kyiv on Sunday following talks with Zelenskiy, as the Trump administration renewed its push to end Russia’s 4-1/2-year war in Ukraine.
They arrived following talks in Moscow, after which the Kremlin said it did not rule out the resumption of three-way negotiations also including the United States. Both Moscow and Kyiv halted strikes on their capitals for three days to ensure the security of the US peace negotiators.
Ukraine’s air force said it downed nearly all cruise missiles and two ballistic missiles.
Attacks on passenger trains
Aside from Kyiv, eight other regions were targeted, Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said. Close to 100 people were evacuated after Russian drones hit a train in the northern Sumy region, he said.
The head of Ukrainian rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia said another commuter train was hit in the region. Passengers had been evacuated but not all were at a safe distance and some suffered shrapnel wounds, he said.
‘Unacceptable activities’
Hungary is expelling 10 members of the Russian diplomatic mission after they “engaged in activities in Hungary that are unacceptable for diplomats under the Vienna Convention”, Budapest said on Tuesday.
The new government under pro-EU conservative Prime Minister Peter Magyar made the move to protect Hungary’s “security and sovereignty”, foreign minister Anita Orban said in a Facebook post.
Hungary has “called on the individuals in question to leave” the country, she said.
She added that the action “does not imply breaking off diplomatic relations with Russia”. “Hungary intends to continue the necessary dialogue, based on mutual respect and adherence to the rules,” Orban said, without giving details of what the mission staffers had allegedly done. Moscow vowed to retaliate against the expulsions.
